The passphrase is the master password (key) for your ARK tokens. Every Ark address has its own unique passphrase. With the passphrase you can sign transactions to send your ARK or vote for a delegate.

Do not lose it, and do not share it with others, or you could lose access to your ARK tokens. If you lose your passphrase, or if it is stolen, there is nothing we can do to help you. We CANNOT recover any lost passphrases.

WARNING

BACKUP YOUR PASSPHRASE! DO NOT LOSE IT! WRITE IT DOWN, SAVE IT HOWEVER YOU CAN!

# I can’t send a transaction because of a wrong passphrase. What should I do?

You can’t do anything without the correct passphrase. Please be aware that every character and space counts. Try to remove spaces at the beginning and end. Try to check for capital letters, there should be none (by default 12 words, separated by space, all lower case letters, no space at the beginning or end). Try to spot incorrectly written words. If you do not have the correct passphrase … your tokens could be lost. Again, if you lose your passphrase, there is nothing the Ark team or anyone else can do to help you.

Ark follows the BIP39 proposal standards. You can find all of the English words used to randomly generate the passphrase here.

# Is the 12 word mnemonic passphrase really secure? Can it be brute forced?

Yes it is secure. The 12 word passphrases are much more secure than your usual passwords. It would currently take all the computing power available on Earth for thousands of years to brute force your passphrase. Click here to read more on mnemonic generation.

The second passphrases improves security by adding another 12 words that will be added to your address, making for 24 words total. Make sure you save this second passphrase, as you will now need both passphrases to sign transactions — note that it will cost a fee to create a second passphrase. This fee set dynamically when you use the Ark Desktop Wallet, or set to 5 ARK when you use the Ark Client.

NO. If you lose or delete your 2nd passphrase you cannot access your address anymore or sign transactions. You can still import the account/address (1st passphrase), but cannot sign any transactions (you’d need 1st and 2nd passphrase for that). If you lose the 2nd passphrase, you officially make the address/account only view-able and not accessible.

if you lose your 2nd passphrase, or 1st one, your access to that address/account and anything in that address are lost. There is nothing we can do to recover a lost passphrase of any kind.

# I lost my passphrase. Can you guys reset it or reverse my transaction?

If you lost your passphrase there is literally nothing we can do for you — there is no refund button, “forgot my passphrase” or anything similar.
We also cannot reverse any transactions on the blockchain as it is immutable. We are custodians of the code and making sure that the system works like a clock, not the gatekeepers of transactions on the Ark blockchain.